The gunners of the German batteries leave their pieces. McCall rides among them, rallies them a moment, but the drivers are panic-stricken. They dash off to the rear, breaking through the infantry, and trampling down the men. The Rebels rush upon the deserted guns with unparalleled frenzy. The line of McCall is broken, and portions of his troops follow the fleeing cannoneers. General McCall tries to rally the fugitives, but they are deaf to all his orders. They stream on through Hooker's and Sumner's line. Will Hooker's men join the drifting current? Now or never they must be brave. Now or never their country is to be saved. All hearts feel it; all hands are ready. They stand in the gateway of centuries. Unnumbered millions are beckoning them to do their duty. Hooker has Grover's brigade on the right, Carr's in the center, and Sickles's on the left,--just the order in which they stood at Williamsburg. The Sixteenth Massachusetts, led by the heroic Colonel Wyman, met the pursuers. The Sixty-Ninth Pennsylvania, of Sedgwick's division, joining upon Hooker's right, delivered at the same moment a fire upon the flank of the enemy. Along Sumner's front, from King's, Kirby's, Tompkins's Owen's, and Bartlett's batteries, flashed double-shotted guns. It was as if a voice had said, "Thus far and no farther!" Hooker's infantry came into close battle-line, delivered a fire, which forced the Rebels over against Sumner's batteries; which, in turn, threw them against Kearney, and against Meade's brigade, which had not joined in the fight. Grover pushed on with the First and Sixteenth Massachusetts, the Second New Hampshire, and Twenty-Sixth Pennsylvania, with reckless daring. Hill was driven back over all the ground he had won, with great slaughter. It was a decided repulse, but costly to the Sixteenth Massachusetts. Its noble colonel fell at the head of his regiment. These were the last words of one of the soldiers of that regiment: "I thank God that I am permitted to die for my country, and I thank him yet more that I am prepared,--or at least I hope I am." So complete was the repulse that the Rebel troops became a mob, and fled in terror towards Richmond. "Many old soldiers," says a Rebel officer, "who had served on the plains of Arkansas and Missouri wept in the bitterness of their souls like children. Of what avail had it been to us that our best blood had flowed for six long days? Of what avail all of our unceasing and exhaustless endurance? Everything seemed lost, and a general depression came over all our hearts. Batteries dashed past in headlong flight. Ammunition, hospital, and supply wagons rushed along, and swept the troops away with them from the battle-field. In vain the most frantic exertions, entreaty, and self-sacrifice of the staff officers! The troops had lost their foothold, and all was over with the Southern Confederacy!"[43] [Footnote 43: Cologne Gazette account.]